i-pod declared security threat

hey guys I saw this yesterday, and I struck me as very strange. I dont have an ipod myself, so i dont know much about them. what i'd really like to know: can they really carry viruses(i guess they can), but is it really common for an ipod to do so? By pluggin a usb device into the computer do u really bypass all the passwords? im confused, is this article just exagerating or not?

Anything with a hard disk or memory can "carry viruses" or any other file. And yes, normally if you walk up to a computer where someone is already logged in, and plug in a peripheral, you don't have to repeat the login to move files between the computer and the peripheral.

If I were trying to sabotage computers or steal secret data, though, I'd probably use something less conspicuous, like a USB key memory thingie.

Dan Maples
Ranch Hand

Joined: Jun 21, 2004
Posts: 153

posted Jul 14, 2004 12:54:00

0

seems to me like an ipod wouldnt raise any redflags at all, many of my co-workers have ipods at work with them.

What's funny about news articles like this is all they do is give people ideas. There's nothing newsworthy about it. It reminds me of an article I read a while back on MSNBC about music file sharing. The article actually listed all the Software available to share music online with links. :roll:

Not just that, but the BBC reports that the MOD never implemented a ban in iPods at all...

Maybe some overzealous guard who used to work in IT until outsourced to Pakistan told someone that he could not allow an iPod in the building but there's no official policy (yet?).

The main threat as seen by MOD in items like USB drives and devices like iPods isn't virusses as much as theft of sensitive information. It's the same reason many armed forces are thinking of banning their troops from carrying mobile phones in the field (this after journalists with mobile phones were caught reporting the position and direction of travel to their friends and colleagues despite having been told all communications must go through official channels during the war in Iraq).

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting: Maybe some overzealous guard who used to work in IT until outsourced to Pakistan told someone that he could not allow an iPod in the building but there's no official policy (yet?).

Maybe the MoD are worried about classic rock being imported into their systems and displacing all the marching band music

Jeroen Wenting
Ranch Hand

Joined: Oct 12, 2000
Posts: 5093

posted Jul 15, 2004 08:38:00

0

Originally posted by Richard Hawkes:

Maybe the MoD are worried about classic rock being imported into their systems and displacing all the marching band music

The MOD still values musicians and uses life performances rather than recordings (which are now replacing life musicians in the US even at funerals, the latest is that even the bugler has now got a tape recorder built into his bugle which plays taps instead of the bugler).